The Google Redirect Virus is VERY annoying, yet it is curable. The symptoms of this virus are similar to having a spyware infection on your computer. I recently had the unfortunate experience of getting this virus on my computer. After hours of searching Google, I FINALLY found a solution to this very annoying virus. This virus is not damaging to one’s system, however, it is EXTREMELY annoying and browsing is made difficult as the virus “hijacks” your browser and redirects your browser to spam websites and other pay-per-click web portals. The virus will hijack anytime of browsing including Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome

Here are some symptoms of the Google Search Redirect Virus.

1. Clicking on a search result does not take you to the correct page. Instead the browser redirects you to another website with your search criteria. Often times these websites have a long list of advertisement links based on your search criteria. There are many types of spam websites that the hijacked browser will redirect you to, so it’s pointless listing them all.

2. Random pop-ups occur

3. All of these browser hijack occurrences happen even after a “successful” scan from a spyware blockers program.

4. Scanning with popular spyware removal software does not work: AVG, Trend, Hi Jack This, Avast and Lavasoft Adware did not work for me and it will not work for you.

Now there actually is an easy Google redirect virus removal method. If you’ve browsed all over the internet, you might have seen strange and difficult ways to remove this virus. Some people even say to reformat your hard drive. Whatever you do, do NOT reformat your hard drive. This is a huge waste of time and is unnecessary.

Here’s how the Google redirecting virus works and why it can’t be detected by most anti-spyware blockers. The virus is very sneaking and it patches itself over a LEGIT system file called atapi.sys. When a spyware blocking program scans over this file, it deems it safe and will pass over it. However, the patched file is the actual virus and needs to be deleted.

So how can one delete the Google Redirection Virus? The first step is to search for this file manually and get a clean copy of the file from another computer. However, this is a lot of work and simply takes too much time.
The best way to remove Google redirect virus is by downloading Hitman Pro 3.5. You may think that this is too good to be true, but it actually works! Go to CNET, download the program and scan your computer. Unlike most major spyware blockers, the Hitman Pro will scan your entire computer in 15 minutes and will find the atapi.sys file that is infected. Once the file is found, the program will delete the file upon restart and a clean copy of the file will be inserted on your computer.

I scanned my computer with Hitman Pro 3.5, allowed the automatic deletion of the atapi.sys file, restarted my computer and VOILA! No more Google redirect virus!